Tag Archives: chocolate

Post navigation

Are you familiar with Allison’s Gourmet? You should be. Allison, maven of mmmm, is all about chocolate. Award-winning, artisan, organic, dairy-free, fair-trade chocolate. Oh, and it’s out of this world delicious too. Do yourself a favour and get acquainted. May I suggest the pure vanilla caramels? I’m a fan. Take a look at Allison’s site and feast your eyes. You can’t go wrong with any of the choices there—with cookies, brownies, toffee, brittle, fudge, chocolates, caramels, tea, coffee, and hot chocolate—there are endless gift-giving possibilities. Why not include yourself s a recipient?

A longtime admirer, I had the pleasure of meeting Allison in person at last summer’s VVC in Portland–so when she recently asked if she could interview me for the Friday With Friends series on her blog, I was chuffed. Check it out here, blush. It’s short and sweet and focuses on my enthusiasm for vegan baking and my massive sweet tooth.

It’s Vegan MoFo Day 3, and my Holiday Cookie Project is in full swing. Today we really get into the holiday spirit with Chocolaty Crinkle Cookies.

So festive and pretty, these chewy chocolate marvels are almost brownie-like – a good thing in my book. In addition to cocoa, the recipe incorporates actual chocolate – which really ups the chocolate ante. Something tells me these would be undeniably wicked with bittersweet chocolate. Next time. Oh yes.

These cookies are delicious with a fabulous texture. It was hard to give them away. Definite winner.

Like this:

Happy World Vegan Day! It is also time to reveal the most recent Daring Bakers’ challenge: Macarons. Well, truth be told, it was actually time to reveal the Daring Bakers challenge last Wednesday. Better late than never I say. There was no way I was going to miss out on trying my hand at making vegan macarons, and what better way to celebrate World Vegan Day, the kick off to World Vegan Month.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Macarons were made famous in France, although they may have originally been brought there from Italy. According to Serious Eats, ‘the English word macaroonis derived from the French macaron, which in turn comes from the Italian maccherone, or “fine dough.”‘ These delicate cookies are traditionally made with almond flour (finely ground almonds), confectioners’ sugar, and egg whites. To veganise them, I would have to replace five egg whites. After following the early feedback of my fellow vegan Daring Bakers, I decided to use Ener-G egg replacer to do this. For those unfamiliar with this product, Ener-G is basically a mix of starches and chemical leavening to which water is added – it is particularly well suited to cookies.

I have to say, I was a bit trepidatious upon embarking on this culinary adventure. Whenever the replacement of a mountain of egg whites is in order, things can get dicey fast. I was, however, pleasantly surprised with the results. I achieved a delicate thin crust and a deliciously chewy centre. I had some difficulty piping the dough initially – mine was far too stiff to yield the desired shape. I somewhat rectified this by adding four teaspoons of water to thin the dough a bit. Still, the visual result is not the perfectly smooth dome you might have seen in the pages of Gourmet or the window of a Parisian patisserie – or indeed, the heights of biscuit beauty achieved by many of my fellow Daring Bakers. Nonetheless, I was fairly pleased, considering.

I flavoured the dough with vanilla bean and cocoa and whipped up a batch of the delightful Chocolate Mousse from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, to use as my filling. If you would like vanilla macarons, omit the cocoa. I thought Matcha green tea powder would make a great alternative addition.

1. Preheat the oven to 200F. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.
2. Beat the Ener-G and water with an electric mixer (or stand mixer) until it holds soft peaks. Add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the Ener-G mixture and stir gently to combine. Add vanilla bean seeds, and Cocoa (or Matcha) if using. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Don’t overmix.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip or a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off. It’s easy to fill your bag if you stand it up in a glass and fold the tops of the bag down over the edges before filling with batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized mounds of batter onto parchment lined baking sheets.
6. Bake the macaron for 5 minutes at 200F. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375F. Once the oven has reached this temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or until lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling. I think any soft filling would work nicely – the cookies are delicate so you don’t want to be pressing them together too roughly. I chose to use the Chocolate Mousse recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for my filling. You could also try your favourite ganache recipe.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of photographs and /or written material without written permission from Marika Collins is strictly prohibited. Written excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Marika Collins and Madcap Cupcake with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.